18
Drum: ENTERPRISE
It’s the validation sticker we’ve worn for years to
explain (or excuse) our interests. When people ask,
“What are you studying?” our answer has always
been two-fold. First, the program (History, Theatre)
and then the plan: “But I’m going to law school.”
How quickly the confusion (American Studies?)
gives way to ‘Ahas’ of comprehension.
Of course, now that the day is upon us we must
appraise the master plan. The most fickle among us
English vocabulary is a side effect not an objective of
legal education. Consider, Harvard Law School ‘Secondyear Basic Courses’1 are: Accounting, Constitutional
Law, Corporations and Taxation. If two or more
seem tedious, perhaps law’s not for you.
Or perhaps it’s the money that piques your interest,
as it did mine; frankly, as it does mine. $100,000
would relieve my proud mother of my myriad loans
in a matter of months. But those six-figure salaries
“Going to law school with no interest in legal practice is much like
fulfilling all the pre-med requirements without any inclination to
become a doctor.”
(myself included) seek solace in the Apply and Defer
Approach. Gifted scholars, dancers, teachers, poets
— we know we don’t want to be lawyers. But in the
name of appeasing parents, perceptions, and Pell
Grants, we log onto LSAC (Law School Admission
Council).
A word. If you:
a) Are going to law school because you aren’t
going to medical school,
b) Are going to law school because “it just comes
next,” or
c) Imagine law school as an extension of your
liberal arts education, please do reconsider.
Going to law school with no interest in legal practice
is much like fulfilling all the pre-med requirements
without any inclination to become a doctor. Unless
you truly adore maths and science, you’d have
worked too hard for too little. No less than organic
chemistry, civil procedure is too dense to be done as
an option-opening exercise. Misguided are we who
envision a PoliSci playground for polymath and
public servant alike. Like an amplified version of
vocational training law-school is designed to prepare
professionals for their practice. The refinement of an
are awarded primarily to starting associates in
Corporate Law. If you are opposed on principle to
the professional manipulation of money, your Benz
will be a long time coming. So it goes for those who
seek reprieve in financial services. We (especially the
‘we’ with debt) have grown weary in The Struggle.
When everyone else was doing it, being broke
seemed enlightened. But the recession has rubbed
all the rugged charm off structural unemployment.
As the debts add up and our twenties wind down,
temporary tedium seems worth the tender.
But I wonder. What is the difference between the
investment banker and the twenty-first century
sharecropper? Instead of other men’s land, he tills
other men’s money. He rises at the crack of dawn
and works to the point of exhaustion, planting and
growing the ‘crop’ of those richer than him. At the
end of the season, he gives the landowner (not to
mention the landlady) the bulk of the harvest, keeping
a minute fraction for himself. It doesn’t seem right.
I understand that there are those of you whose
motives transcend the money. Some of you find
the thrill of the trade as appealing as the pay-cheque.
Others find inspiration in the financing of dreams,»